Nest CEO Tony Fadell's New Startup Wants To Completely Change The Smartphone As We Know It

LISA EADICICCONov 13, 2014, 20:54 IST

AP Photo/Marcio Jose SanchezNest CEO and Keyssa Chairman Tony Fadell

While many smartphone manufacturers are obsessed with keeping phones super slim and making them run faster, a startup chaired by Nest CEO Tony Fadell is tackling an entirely different problem: connectivity.

Silicon Valley startup Keyssa is working on a technology it calls "kiss connectivity," which could allow you to transfer a movie as large as "Avatar" between devices in just five seconds, as Bloomberg Businessweek reported in its profile of the company.

You would simply tap your phone or tablet to another to transfer data, similar to the way Near Field Communication (NFC) technology works today.

Keyssa's "kiss connectivity," however, claims to be much faster.

Keyssa

Keyssa has already raised $47 million to bring its connectivity to devices, which we can expect to see next year. The technology is essentially a complex radio that uses high frequencies to send information between smartphones, tablets, laptops, and home appliances.

The technology is supposedly faster than the different ways in which we transfer data today. As Bloomberg Businessweek notes, the current Wi-Fi standard speed tops out at 1.34 gigabits per second, while USB can transfer data at five gigabits per second and NFC maxes at about 400 kilobits per second. Keyssa's "kiss" method can share data at six gigabits per second, and doesn't require any hard wired connection to work.

This means future smartphones could become even slimmer and durable as more devices begin to support wireless charging. Keyssa's "kiss connectivity" combined with wireless charging and Bluetooth could mean that ports would no longer be necessary on smartphones.

"For the last 25 years, I've had to struggle with delicate metal connectors that put unsightly holes in beautiful products," Fadell said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg Businessweek. "I expect kiss connectivity to spark an immediate wave of industrial design innovation."

Keyssa is backed by Samsung and Intel, but the company hasn't said which manufacturers are currently working with the technology. Keyssa CEO Eric Almgren told Bloomberg Businessweek that the technology will eventually enable users to download movies and music albums almost instantly from kiosks at airports and concert venues.